ROCHESTER — Former Police Chief David Dubois is receiving an $84,402 annual pension after serving the city for 29 years. In addition, he received a $50,423 payout from the city for accrued vacation, personal leave, and sick leave time.

Dubois, who has served as Rochester police chief for 10 years, is now running for Strafford County sheriff. He is competing for the position against Joseph DiGregorio, who retired from being a captain at the county’s sheriff’s office effective Sept. 1.

DiGregorio received $11,382 in payouts from Strafford County upon his retirement, despite a documented objection from county administrator Ray Bower.

According to Bower, the county’s policy limits the number of vacation hours that can be accrued to 200; however, DiGregorio’s payout was for 211.73 hours of unused vacations, which totaled about $6,076. Also, the county’s policy does not address compensatory time, but DiGregorio, with the sheriff’s approval, received 110 hours of “comp” time, which equaled to $3,157.

After Bower made a documented objection to the amount being paid to DiGregorio, the Sheriff Wayne Estes overrode that objection, as permitted by his elected position as sheriff, said Bower, and the payout to DiGregorio was made in the amount of $11,382.

According to Estes, the “comp” time hours were calculated for DiGregorio’s work with the Strafford County Technical Accident Reconstruction (TAR) Team. Also, the extra 11 hours in accrued vacation time were approved because DiGregorio did not have time to take a vacation before finding out he was required to resign from his post in order to run for sheriff.

DiGregorio did not receive a pension as a result of working at the Strafford County Sheriff’s Office, because he had technically been working there part time, said Bower. He said, until last year, it was up to the employer to define how many hours per week amounts to “part time” for police and firefighters. Now, the statutory definition of part-time for these employees is working 32 hours a week or fewer.

But, DiGregorio is still collecting an annual pension from his retirement from Dover Police Department in 1999, according to Marty Karlon, spokesman from N.H. Retirement System.

Karlon said last year, DiGregorio’s annual pension was $34,401. He said this number should remain unchanged this year, as the Legislature did not provide any cost-of-living increases to retirees.

Karlon said until last year, full time police officers were contributing 9.3 percent of their paychecks to their retirements. Last year, they began contributing 11.5 percent. He also said employees such as police officers and firefighters do not receive social security benefits after retiring, and therefore pensions for those employees tend to be higher.

According to Karlon, the pension rate of public employees is based on the number of years worked at a particular job, and the average of three highest salaries that employee received while working.

Former Portsmouth Police Chief Lou Ferland, who retired last month, is expected to receive a pension of about $97,000 per year, according to the Portsmouth Herald.